With just 11 days until the NHL runs its annual draft lottery, and the league’s regular season over, the odds are not really in the Buffalo Sabres’ favor.
The Buffalo Sabres finished the regular season with 81 points in 82 games, earning 49.39 percent of the possible points available.
The worst team in the league, the Toronto Maple Leafs, earned 69 points in 82 games – just 42.07 percent. Thus, they have the best chance at winning the NHL’s draft lottery.
Other teams with a chance include the Edmonton Oilers, who earned 70 points, and the Vancouver Canucks, who earned 75.
Columbus, Calgary, Winnipeg, Arizona, Montreal, Colorado, New Jersey, Ottawa, Carolina and Boston are also in the running.
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Now, with just over a week until we find out for real who gets the first-overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, we’ve run the NHL Draft Lottery Simulator a few last times to see who wins.
A few things to remember heading in: the Leafs have a whopping 20 percent chance at winning. The chance drops to 13.5 percent for the Oilers.
The Buffalo Sabres have a six percent chance at getting the top pick.
With our first run of the draft lottery simulator, surprisingly, it wasn’t Toronto or Edmonton who got the first-overall selection.
Instead, it was the Carolina Hurricanes – they of just a two percent chance of winning! If that doesn’t prove that anyone can win it, I don’t know what will.
Of course, Edmonton and Toronto won four of the next five simulations, but. Still.
At the end of 100 simulations, the results showed a few things.
First and foremost, the Buffalo Sabres are not likely to win the draft lottery. That six percent chance isn’t nothing, but it isn’t substantial, either. And of course, while we can run the lottery simulator over and over and over again, the real thing only gets run once, and whatever happens, you’re stuck with it.
In the end, the Buffalo Sabres got the first-overall pick nine out of 100 times, which is actually slightly more than would’ve been predicted based on their six percent chance.
They got the second and third overall picks six times each.
But by and large, the Buffalo Sabres were stuck between the 8th and 10th pick.
The Buffalo Sabres finished with the 9th overall selection a whopping 43 times out of 100. They got the 8th overall pick 28 times.
Eight times, they fell all the way down to the 10th overall selection.
In terms of other teams, both the Leafs and Oilers won the simulati0n 14 times each.
The Leafs ended up with a top-three pick 43 times, while the Oilers finished in the top three 37 times.
Boston, the team with the lowest chance, won just one time – exactly what the math would lead us to expect.
Next: Buffalo Sabres Free Agent Guide
In the end, all these simulations are pointless. We only get one real draft lottery and one real chance at winning it. And though the odds may not exactly be in the Buffalo Sabres’ favor at first glance, who knows what will really happen on April 30?